An arena is an enclosed area circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators, may be covered by a roof; the key feature of an arena is that the event space is the lowest point, allowing maximum visibility. Arenas are designed to accommodate a multitude of spectators; the word derives from Latin harena, a fine-grained sand that covered the floor of ancient arenas such as the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, to absorb blood. The term arena is sometimes used as a synonym for a large venue such as Pasadena's Rose Bowl, but such a facility is called a stadium if it does not have a roof; the use of one term over the other has to do with the type of event. Football is played in a stadium, while basketball and ice hockey are played in an arena, although many of the larger arenas hold more spectators than do the stadiums of smaller colleges or high schools. There are exceptions.

The home of the Duke University men's and women's basketball teams would qualify as an arena, but the facility is called Cameron Indoor Stadium. Domed stadiums, like arenas, are enclosed but have the larger playing surfaces and seating capacities found in stadiums, are not referred to as arenas in North America. There is the sport of indoor American football, a variant of the outdoor game, designed for the usual smaller playing surface of most arenas; the term "arena" is used loosely to refer to any event or type of event which either or metaphorically takes place in such a location with the specific intent of comparing an idea to a sporting event. Such examples of these would be terms such as "the arena of war" or "the arena of love" or "the political arena". In many fighting games, the stage that opponents are fought in is called an arena. An arena is named after a name sponsor, it is common. Ice hockey arena AmphitheatreList of indoor arenas by capacityList of stadiums by capacity

William Levett, Esq. was a long serving courtier to King Charles I of England. Levett accompanied the King during his flight from Parliamentary forces, including his escape from Hampton Court palace, to his imprisonment in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, to the scaffold on which he was executed. Following the King's death, Levett wrote a letter claiming that he had witnessed the King writing the so-called Eikon Basilike during his imprisonment, an allegation that produced a flurry of new claims about the disputed manuscript and flamed a growing movement to rehabilitate the image of the executed monarch; the brother of Rev. Richard Levett of Ashwell, William Levett was born in Melton Mowbray, the son of James Levett, descendant of a knightly Sussex family of Anglo-Norman descent. Levett entered the Royal service as a Page of the Backstairs rising to Groom of the Bedchamber; as a courtier, Levett benefitted from favors dispensed by the monarchy. Levett's appointment as courtier seems to date from the beginning of King Charles' reign.

Levett was appointed a page in the king's bedchamber at Oxford on 16 January 1644 as a replacement for George Harley. By the time the King had been captured and sent to Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, it was clear that Levett had made himself indispensable: the King requested that Levett be one of the few courtiers allowed to accompany him there. During the King's escape from Hampton Court, Levett had proven his mettle, accompanying the King in his flight southward away from Parliamentary forces. Towards the end of his life, writing from his home in Wiltshire, where he owned Levett's Farm within Savernake Forest, had long leased the Goddard mansion in Swindon, owned property at Manton as well, Levett sent a letter claiming that he had seen King Charles writing the Eikon Basilike; the letter, signed by Levet on 29 April 1691, incorporated into editions of the work alleged to have been authored by the monarch, was celebrated by those who wished to see the dead King as saint for having given his life for the cause of the nation."If anyone has a desire to know the true author of the book entitled Eikon Basilike," Levett wrote, "I, one of the servants of King Charles the First, in his bedchamber, do declare, when his said Majesty was prisoner in the Isle of Wight, that I read over the above mentioned book, in his bed-chamber, writ with his Majesty's own hand, with several underlinings."

"I can testify also," Levett continued in his letter, "that Royston the printer told me, that he was imprisoned by Oliver Cromwell, the Protector, because he would not declare that King Charles the First, was not the author of the said Book." Besides Levett, Royston the printer figured prominently in the attempts to prove that the King himself had authored the Eikon Basilike. In his letter, which he gave to his son Dr. Henry Levett of the Charterhouse London, Levett made clear that he was much in favor with Charles, which contemporary observers noted. In a letter to Lincoln's Innbarrister Seymour Bourman, Levett noted that he was nearly always in the King's presence. "I waited on his Majesty, as page of the bedchamber in ordinary, during all the time of his solitudes. And specially being nominated by his Majesty to be one of his servants, among others, that should attend him during the treaty at Newport, in the isle of Wight." John Ashburnham, another of the King's courtiers from an old Sussex gentry family, noted in a memoir published by a descendant that Levett was much in favor with the King and was to be seen in his presence.

"I believe Mr. Firebrace, Mr. Dowset and Mr. Levet know most of them," Ashburnham recalled in his memoir about those who assisted courtier Levet at the time of Charles' death. "The names of these three gentlemen," notes the manuscript, "frequently occur in the histories and memoirs of that time as employed near the king's person, much in his majesty's confidence."Following the execution of the King, Oliver Cromwell permitted the King's head to be sewn back onto his body for burial. Charles was buried in private on the night of February 7, 1649, inside the Henry VIII vault in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. William Levett Esq. and four other royal retainers—Sir Thomas Herbert, Capt. Anthony Mildmay, Sir Henry Firebrace and Abraham Dowcett -- conveyed the King's body to Windsor; the King's son, King Charles II planned an elaborate royal mausoleum, but it was never built. Following the rule of Cromwell and Parliament, now acting as an officer in the militia, aided the Royal forces when they retook Marlborough, a former hotbed of Roundhead sentiment.

In a letter to Col. Charles Seymour of 1663, Levett wrote of riding into Marlborough, where he and a party of Royalist sympathizers "assaulted the burial place of the Quakers at Wanton and laid it waste, leaving all the prey to the owners' disposal."William Levett lived out the rest of his life following his service to King Charles at his homes in Wiltshire, where he had secured a sinecure as an agent and surveyor for Francis Seymour, 5th Duke of Somerset. Levett had leased the Swindon manor house of the Goddard family property at Swindon beginning in 1658. On 22 January 1658, Francis Bowman Gent. "guardian of Thomas Goddard, leased to Levett a "mansion house occupied by Anne Goddard in Swindon." Goddard family leases to Levett, who retained his farm within Savernake Forest, would come to include other lands owned by the Goddard family in Swindon. In the lease of April 5, 1664, the lease by Goddard notes that "the Parke etc." is included as well as the Goddard mansion. Levett subsequentl